Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEADNavy woke expecting hostility.
Instead, breakfast arrived with a handwritten note.
No meetings today. Rosa has instructions to give you anything you need. — D
Navy read it twice.
Then checked the back as though the threat might be written there.
Nothing.
She found Diego in the library an hour later.
He stood beside the window speaking quietly into his phone.
When he saw her, he ended the call.
“You ignored my note.”
“I’m rebellious.”
“I’m learning.”
Navy crossed her arms.
“You have questions.”
“So do you.”
She noticed the folder beneath his hand.
“What is that?”
Diego did not answer immediately.
That made her uneasy.
“Navy, when did your mother die?”
She went still.
“You investigated her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your scars didn’t appear by magic.”
Her face hardened.
“My mother didn’t hurt me.”
“I didn’t say she did.”
Navy turned toward the door.
“Then this conversation is finished.”
Diego moved the photograph onto the table.
“Look.”
Navy did not want to.
Something in his face made her.
She stepped closer.
The photograph showed a hospital entrance.
A teenage girl in the foreground.
Navy recognized herself.
She had been seventeen.
Thomas had taken her to a private clinic after their father fractured two of her ribs.
Officially, she had fallen during horseback riding.
Navy remembered that day clearly.
What she did not remember was the woman behind her.
Her breath stopped.
“No.”
Diego said nothing.
Navy picked up the photograph.
“No.”
Her fingers began shaking.
The woman entering the car wore dark glasses.
Her hair was shorter.
Her body thinner.
But Navy knew the angle of that jaw.
The posture.
The hand gripping the car door.
“Where did you get this?”
“Private security archive.”
“This is fake.”
“It isn’t.”
“My mother died when I was thirteen.”
“That’s what Victor told everyone.”
“I saw a coffin.”
“Was it open?”
Navy stared.
No.
Victor had said the medication damage was too severe.
He had insisted Navy remember her mother as she had been.
Navy had spent thirteen years imagining the finality of polished mahogany and white roses.
“What are you saying?”
“The car belonged to Saint Catherine’s Behavioral Institute.”
Navy looked at him.
Her face emptied.
Diego knew enough about fear now to recognize it in her.
“Do you know the place?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“My father threatened to send me there.”
Diego’s jaw tightened.
“When?”
“Whenever I talked about leaving.”
Navy sat.
The photograph remained in her hand.
“My mother tried to leave him.”
“So you said.”
“She packed bags one night.”
Navy stared somewhere far beyond the room.
“I remember waking up and hearing them arguing downstairs. My mother told him she was taking me.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
“What happened?”
“He locked me in my bedroom.”
Diego remained still.
“The next morning, she was gone.”
“Victor said what?”
“That she had become unstable.”
Navy swallowed.
“Six months later, he told us she died.”
Diego crouched in front of her.
“Saint Catherine’s still operates.”
Navy’s eyes snapped to his.
“If she was there—”
“We’ll find out.”
“No.”
Diego frowned.
“What?”
Navy stood.
“No.”
“You don’t want to know?”
“I want to know more than I want air.”
“Then—”
“That’s why I’m afraid.”
She walked toward the window.
“If she’s dead, I lose her again.”
Diego’s voice softened.
“And if she’s alive?”
Navy turned.
“Then my father stole thirteen years.”
That afternoon, Navy agreed to go.
Not because Diego persuaded her.
Because she realized fear had made enough decisions for her life.
Saint Catherine’s sat behind stone walls and maple trees.
It looked more like a private university than an institution.
Diego brought only Luca and one female security officer.
Navy noticed the restraint.
Inside, the administrator denied everything.
“We have no patient by that name.”
Diego placed records on the desk.
“She may be under another.”
“I cannot discuss patients.”
Navy stepped forward.
“My name is Navy Martin.”
The woman’s expression changed.
Tiny.
But enough.
Navy saw it.
“You know who I am.”
“No.”
“You do.”
The administrator looked toward Diego.
Navy continued.
“My mother was Evelyn Martin.”
Silence.
“Was she here?”
The administrator’s eyes filled unexpectedly.
That frightened Navy more than denial.
“Please,” Navy whispered.
The woman stood.
“I need to call our legal counsel.”
Diego spoke.
“Call whoever you want.”
Navy stopped him.
“No threats.”
He looked at her.
She continued.
“We do this legally.”
Twenty minutes later, legal counsel arrived.
Then another doctor.
Documents were reviewed.
Victor Martin’s guardianship orders surfaced.
Evelyn had been admitted thirteen years earlier under the name Elena Marsh.
The records claimed severe psychosis.
Violent delusions.
Danger to herself and others.
Navy read the words.
“My mother wasn’t violent.”
The doctor looked uncomfortable.
“I wasn’t employed here then.”
“Is she alive?”
The doctor nodded.
Navy stopped breathing.
“She is currently a resident in a supervised cottage on the grounds.”
The room tilted.
Diego caught Navy’s elbow.
She did not pull away.
“Can I see her?”
The doctor hesitated.
“We need her consent.”
“Ask.”
They waited seventeen minutes.
Navy counted every second.
Then a nurse appeared.
“She said yes.”
The cottage sat beside a frozen garden.
Navy approached the door alone.
Diego remained several yards behind.
Inside, an older woman stood by the fireplace.
Her hair had gone almost completely silver.
She was thinner than Navy remembered.
But she had the same eyes.
Navy stopped.
The woman covered her mouth.
“Navy?”
One word destroyed thirteen years of discipline.
Navy began crying before she realized she was moving.
Her mother crossed the room.
They collided in the middle.
Evelyn wrapped both arms around her daughter.
“My baby.”
Navy buried her face against her mother’s shoulder.
“You were alive.”
“I tried.”
“You were alive.”
“I tried to get back.”
Navy pulled away.
“Why didn’t you?”
Evelyn’s face changed.
“Your father.”
The answer was expected.
Still unbearable.
“He had doctors declare me incompetent.”
“Why?”
“Because I discovered what he was doing.”
Navy’s tears stopped.
“What?”
Evelyn looked beyond her.
She saw Diego through the window.
Her body immediately stiffened.
“Ramos.”
Navy turned.
“He brought me.”
Fear crossed Evelyn’s face.
“You married him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Father.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
Navy took her hands.
“Mom, what did you discover?”
Evelyn sat.
For several seconds she could not speak.
Then she looked directly at Navy.
“Victor didn’t order Mateo Ramos’s death.”
Navy frowned.
“I heard him admit it.”
“He took responsibility.”
“Why would he?”
“To protect Thomas.”
Navy went cold.
“My brother?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Thomas ordered the ambush.”
Navy shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
“He was twenty-four.”
“Why?”
“He believed killing Diego would make him heir to the northern routes after Victor retired.”
Navy stared.
“But Mateo died.”
“Yes.”
“And Father covered it.”
“Because Thomas was his son.”
Navy stepped backward.
Her entire understanding of the family war shifted.
Thomas had negotiated her marriage to Diego.
Thomas had apologized.
Thomas had presented Navy as payment to a man whose uncle died because of him.
The cruelty of it was almost elegant.
Evelyn gripped Navy’s wrist.
“There’s more.”
Navy did not want more.
But there was always more.
“Victor knew your marriage might happen months before the stroke.”
“What?”
“The stroke was real, but he anticipated Thomas would lose the war.”
“How?”
“Because Victor drained the defense accounts himself.”
Navy stared.
“Why?”
Evelyn’s eyes moved toward Diego outside.
“Because your father wanted you inside Ramos House.”
Navy’s blood chilled.
“For what?”
Evelyn tightened her grip.
“To kill Diego.”
The cottage became silent.
Navy slowly looked toward the window.
Diego stood beneath the gray winter sky, waiting for her.
The man who had married her for revenge.
The man who had learned about her scars and chosen restraint.
The man who had brought her to the mother she thought was dead.
And Navy suddenly understood why Victor Martin had allowed his daughter to become a Ramos.
He had never surrendered her.
He had planted her.
May you like
Whether she knew it or not.
And somewhere inside Diego’s house, Victor had probably already prepared the weapon.
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